Coacoachou

Coacoachou is the name of a bay and a lake of the Low-Coast-North of the Quebec.

Located at 16 nautical miles in the south-west of the village of the Roman and at 28 miles in the North-West of that of Chevery, the Coacoachou bay opens in the middle of the most wild zone of the Low-Coast-North of Quebec. Except the seaplane, the only means of transport to reach it are the boat, while following the coast. “Defended of the swells broad by many small islands” (Henry de Puyjalon), the Coacoachou bay penetrates the earths deeply and communicates with the chain of the lakes of the same name which gives access, much more in north, Goose Bay, in the bay of Melville. In montagnais, its name means “the lake of the residence of the Carcajou” (Kuekuâtsheunakâp Nipi), mythical animal for the Amerindians, missing of these areas since long years ( Gulo luscus , the Glouton, Mustélidé).

Majestic door which makes communicate the gulf of the the St. Lawrence (uînipekut) with the forest and lake vastnesses of the peninsula of Quebec - Labrador (nûtshîmit), bay and the chain of the Coacoachou lakes offer to the naturalist a complete panorama of the vegetation and fauna of these complementary areas.

This way which passes by the lakes, the rivers, the forests and the tundra also carries, for that which has the taste and patience to discover them, the traces of a very old human presence. It is to some extent the secret monument, registered voter in the landscape, of the migrating people which arrived in the peninsula there is nearly 10.000 years, after the cast iron of the quaternary glaciers. This network of paths, ways of bearing and routes through the lakes and the rivers, is not reproduced on the charts and it is invisible to the modern traveller who flies over the country in the plane, with 8.000 meters of altitude.

A boat leaves only one transitory trace on water and the vegetation pushes back slowly on the ways of bearing since the sedentarisation of the last Amerindian bands, about 1950. These routes with the precise toponyms, which made it possible to the men to live and exploit these wild regions lasting of the millenia, will be erased one day of the memory of oldest of them and Quebec - Labrador will become again then what it was before: an immense desert, recluse and abandoned.

Geographical outline

Bay Coacoachou

The entry of the Coacoachou bay is located at the 50º 13' of Northern latitude and at the 60º 18' of Western longitude. Being approximately 2,4 km wide, it is not very visible the broad one, the relief not exceeding 100 m at the edge and 250 m behind. When one comes of the Roman in the launch, one usually penetrates there while passing by the Audubon small islands. The swell is not long in weakening and the edge of the coast approach imperceptibly. With starboard, in the North-East, are profiled the rocks and the island Emery, named by Bayfield in memory of the captain of Ripley, the goélette of Audubon. Entering the bay Coacoachou, a first island, the island of the Crocodile (Kâ-nâhuâunuakâht, the island with the yellowish hays), of small size, presents itself to port side. Then, to approximately 4 km of the entry, an island punt, stripped, the island of the Eskimos. The bay widens suddenly and of the handles are inserted deeply in the west and the east: it is the lake with the Bear. At the bottom of bay then draws up a high and large island, timbered, the island of the Cemetery (or island of the Phantom), where one guesses remainders of Amerindian campings. Then the bottom of bay narrows and is transformed into a rapid of a hundred meters broad, which communicates with the lake Salé (Atauînipeku Nipi: “the lake where the sea comes”), located upstream. The current is reversed there with each tide.

Lake Coacoachou

Located in the prolongation of the Coacoachou bay, the lake Coacoachou belongs to a chain of lakes which leads to the Étamamiou river, in north. It is the antique access road of Montagnais of the Roman to their territories of hunting of winter. One reaches the lake Coacoachou while following a way of bearing (patakan) which skirts the Uînipeku rapids, at the bottom of the lake Salé. This way leads to a round lake, approximately 1,1 km diameter, the lake Tshipitnauman (“stopped lake”). Skirting the Coacoachou river, another way of bearing leads to the lake Coacoachou. The lake Coacoachou has a very lengthened form and is 14,4 km long on approximately 1,2 km broad in its central part. Its south-western orientation - the North-East corresponds to the general orientation of the relief on Low-Coast-North. In its southernmost part extend the Mahtihantskuapistatakuahk peninsula (“where was the tent of suery”) and the island Hapeuiat (“the island which one circumvents in boat”). The dominant winds blowing generally of the North-East, the road which the boats follow skirts bank is lake, where the clapot is less. Behind the Hapeuiat island are the falls of the river to the Marten which communicates with river Olomane, located at west, via lake Mukuman kauatan (“lake where it lost the knife eighth note”) and the lake Maigret.

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